I found through research some techniques that I thought may be helpful in capturing movement as patterns. I used that research I found to influence my tests for this week. The techniques I focused on this week were Light Painting, Motion Photography and Chronophotography.
Light Painting is a technique where you use long exposure time to capture the movement of a light source in one image. I found this technique useful as it will allow me to hold or attach a light source to myself so when I move the light will follow. The camera will be able to capture that movement of the light and it will create a pattern.
Experiment:
I started off by using a camera and shooting with long exposure times to try and record where the light source moved. I did a few tests changing the shutter speed and using different light sources/brightness.
For all the tests below, I had my camera set to shutter speed priority mode which meant I could manually change the exposure time but everything else the camera changed automatically to compensate.
Set One:
My first test was done in a dark room using my phone torch as the light source.
The aperture for each shot stayed at F3.5.
The ISO for shot 1 was 1600. Shot 2 was 1000. And the rest were at 100.
These are the shutter speeds for each shot:
Shot 1: 0"3
Shot 2: 1"
Shot 3: 2"
Shot 4: 3"2
Shot 5: 4"
Reflection:
I think to get a good amount of movement recorded I need exposure time to be at least 2 seconds depending on the action. The longer it is the more movement I can record. The first shot had a shutter speed that was too low to capture the amount of movement needed. The second shot was better but still only got a small amount of the action. Then the final three slowly recorded a little more movement each time.
I also found using the torch light also lit the surroundings so you can also see the background and not just the light source which is not what I wanted. I would like to just see and focus on the movement of the light so next I will try with a dimmer light.
Set Two:
Since I found that the torch was too bright in the previous set, for my second test I used the light from my phone screen at a low light level.
The aperture for each shot stayed at F3.5.
The ISO for shot 1 and 2 was 1600. And the rest were at 100.
Same as before, these are the shutter speeds for each shot:
Shot 1: 0"3
Shot 2: 1"
Shot 3: 2"
Shot 4: 3"2
Shot 5: 4"
Reflection:
Using a dimmer light source solved the issue of seeing the background which was good. Because the room was darker since the torch was off I found that the light source was clearer and easier to see. Even with the slow shutter speed the light movement was clearer than in the first set. And again, the longer the exposure time the more motion I could capture. However I did find that with the longer exposure times the source was not as bright in the photo. This may be because I was moving too fast or the light source was just too dim.
Set Three:
This time I still used my phone screen as the light source but I brought the brightness level up to the top.
The aperture for each shot stayed at F3.5.
The ISO for shot 1 1600. And the rest were at 100.
Same as before, these are the shutter speeds for each shot:
Shot 1: 1"
Shot 2: 2"
Shot 3: 3"2
Shot 4: 4"
Reflection:
I decided to not record this test with an exposure time of 0"3 as I already discovered from the past two tests that it was not enough time to see the movement. Bringing the brightness level up definitely made the light pattern more prominent, but it did create some highlights on the surrounding objects in the room and made the first shot quite bright. Though I think if i were to edit these photos I could probably block out the light in the background to give a fully black background. This could also be fixed in the future by being in an empty room or studio. The first shot may have been dimmer if the ISO was lower also so I would need to manually set everything. I also tried to make my movements slower as the exposure time went up so it would be able to see the same action. This however made the last two shots look very similar and did not allow me to record more movement. I therefor think the best thing to do is use the brighter light source but keep a constant speed instead of slowing down.
Conclusion
I think continuing to test light painting will be useful as these tests show that it is possible to create a pattern from movement with light. I will use my knowledge from these sets in my next tests to be able to get the best results. Some of these would be using long exposure times, a medium brightness light source and to manually edit all the camera settings.
I would also like to try tests with habitual movement such as walking, sitting or writing to see if I can still get similar results with different actions.
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